


The Oxygen in Priestly Green

by dynamicsymmetry



Series: Footage Not Found [24]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Male-Female Friendship, Missing Scene, Pre-Relationship, Season/Series 02, Smoking, Summer of Bethyl, Summer of Bethyl 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 09:50:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15458724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dynamicsymmetry/pseuds/dynamicsymmetry
Summary: With all the running after the farm, all Daryl wants is to sit and have a quiet smoke. Of course Beth Greene has other plans, and a request that truly surprises him.





	The Oxygen in Priestly Green

**Author's Note:**

> Summer of Bethyl prompt for today is “rush”. My take is partially inspired by the fact that I’m having to go super easy on the cloves at the moment until I lose my nicotine tolerance, which is vexing me. But I need my headrush or there’s no point. 
> 
> Anyway, the ship tag here may or may not apply, depending on your preference; this could be prior to an eventual romantic relationship, or it could be the start of a pure friendship. I leave that part up to you. 
> 
> Hope you like. ❤️

“Lemme try that.”

He looks up, frowns at her. Squints; standing between him and the sun like this isn't doing her visibility any favors. The slim outlines of her body, the wind-loosened hair around her head cast into a pale gold halo—fuck, is he some kind of poet now?—but other than that, she's difficult to make out. Her features are shadowy hints. Which means he has only her voice to go on regarding how serious she is or isn't about smoking one of his goddamn cigarettes.

He shifts on the steps, taps ash onto the concrete, and regards her with distant amusement.

Might as well just ask. “You fuckin’ serious, girl?”

“Yeah.” Going by her voice, she is in fact serious; she's not precisely demanding, but she's using that tone she employs when she's decided on something and isn't about to be budged. They've been on the road for a while, since the farm, and while they haven't had an abundance of one-on-one interactions, in that time he's had plenty of chances to observe her in the wild, and he thinks he knows her tolerably well by now.

She's not spoiled, really. But she's sure as hell stubborn.

He glances around for any potentially disapproving eyes. Maggie is nowhere in sight, and neither is Hershel; they're likely inside the abandoned but mostly intact house they've found, going through the partially looted kitchen and pantry and organizing what little they can find. Rick is across the backyard in the midst of a standard redneck scrap pile collecting firewood, Glenn is assisting, and God knows where the others are. And Daryl? He just wanted to sit a spell and have a quiet smoke, and here's Beth Greene horning in on both of those.

He's not as annoyed as he might have expected.

“Why the hell?” He lifts the cigarette, jabs the smoldering end at her. “You think your dad’s gonna be fine with it?”

She shrugs. “Daddy isn't here.” A faint smirk tugs at the corner of her mouth. “Why, are you gonna tell on me?”

“Ain't nothin’ to tell.” He takes another drag—to amiably rub it in, perhaps. “Get on outta here.”

“I wanna try it,” she persists, and crosses her arms, and she's so much the picture of the archetypal headstrong teenage girl that he nearly laughs. If she stamped her boot for emphasis she would be completing the image perfectly.

“Why?”

“I never have. I dunno.” She sounds less certain now, perhaps a little uncomfortable at being prodded, and trying not to show it. Likely she didn't think of an answer to this question. Well, she should have. “I just wanna see what it's like.”

He looks at her in silence for a moment or two. A breeze stirs the leaves of the overgrown honeysuckle crowded against the house, wafting the sweet, heady smell over them both, and it mixes with the tobacco in a way that's both profoundly strange and profoundly pleasant. He breathes it in as he considers—and yeah, he's considering it, because it remains amusing if for no other reason.

It is, in its way, a cliché to accompany the archetype. Headstrong but essentially Good Girl come to the rough outsider to induce him to corrupt her morals. Not with anything so scandalous as a grope in a dark corner—that thought sends a vaguely uncomfortable twinge through him—or a swig of booze but instead merely a breath of smoke.

She might or might not even see it as corruption. Possibly she really is just bored and curious. _Acting out_ a little, but not in the pursuit of any earnest rebellion.

He takes another drag, blows a stream in her general direction. “These ain't exactly a snap to find no more, y’know.”

She rolls her eyes—the sun has moved the smallest bit and he can now perceive her clearly enough to catch it. “I don't want a whole one. I just wanna see what it's like.”

“It's shitty.”

“Yeah, but you do it all the time. Can't be _that_ shitty.”

“First time I had one I almost hacked my fuckin’ lungs up,” he points out, and he's not lying. First cigarette when he was nine years old, and Merle gave him gleeful hell for it when he couldn't take it.

Which is why he kept on trying until it was easy. Then pleasant. He's never been what he would consider dependent—can't depend on anything like that anymore—but it's a taste he's acquired, and it's one he’ll more than admit to enjoying.

“So I hack my lungs up,” she sighs, and holds out her hand. “I won't blame you. Gimme.”

He doesn't. Amusement is sliding into _be_ musement. Beth in this light is the most interesting thing he's seen all day. Not that that's an especially high bar to clear.

“C’mon, Daryl. You know I'm not goin’ away till you do.”

He leans back on one elbow. “I can make you go away.”

“I'll tell Daddy you were a jerk to me.”

“He ain't gonna do nothin’. He knows I'm a jerk already.”

She huffs a soft laugh, looks down. “Fair.” And she shoots him a sly look from beneath a stray lock of hair. “You could be less of one, though.”

He was amused by her persistence. Now he's gathering the potential for another source of amusement. She wants to try it so bad? Even after his sincere warning? Fine. She literally asked for it, so on her head—and in her lungs—be it.

Without another word, he profers the cigarette.

She arches a brow, hesitates as if to make sure he's not screwing with her, then plucks it from his fingers and places it between her lips.

“Careful—” But like a stupid little idiot she's breathing it in without a trace of caution, and it does indeed serve her purely right when she snatches it away and breaks into a fit of coughing so hard she almost doubles over.

Which is funny enough, but Daryl looks past her at Rick and Glenn, mildly concerned about getting in some manner of trouble. Fortunately just at that moment Glenn triggers an avalanche of rotting boards and lets out a yelp as he jumps back, and neither he nor Rick seem to hear.

He returns his attention to her and watches her until the wheezing subsides and she raises her head, shoulders still heaving a bit and her cheeks wet with tears. She swipes the back of her free hand across her mouth.

“That was awful.”

“Toldja.” He holds out his hand, fluttering his fingers. “Give it h—”

But she's returning it to her lips and inhaling _again,_ and while this time there's more than a little coughing, she doesn't inhale quite as recklessly and there isn't quite as much of it. Smoke billows artlessly from her mouth and nose—and then she sways slightly, leans forward and catches herself on his shoulder.

“Whoa. That's…” She presses the heel of her palm against her forehead, squeezes her eyes shut. “Why’m I _dizzy?_ ”

He snags the cigarette from her as she lowers herself down beside him, shoots her a dry half smile. “You think people just smoke this shit ‘cause they got a thing for chimneys?”

“I'm not stupid, Daryl.” But her exasperation is somewhat muted, and she sucks in a huge breath, her head loose between her shoulders. “Wow. I just… I didn't know it was like that.”

“It ain't after a while.” As it to emphasize the point, he pulls in a sizable lungful. “You get a tolerance.”

“I don't think I could do it long enough to get that.” She giggles, and it's frankly kind of adorable. “Don't even know if I could stand up, my legs’re all shaky.”

“So don’t,” he says. And the truth is that he doesn't much care for her to do so, or at the very least he doesn't mind if she stays. She never genuinely annoyed him, and she isn't doing so now. It's not as though he was engaged in any activity that necessitated solitude.

And anyway, the girl really does look a little wobbly.

“You're a fuckin’ lightweight,” he observes, good-natured, and she laughs again.

“You're a jerk.”

He gives her a mock-glare. “The hell, girl, you said I wasn't gonna be if I let you have a damn smoke.”

“I said you wouldn't be _as much_ of one,” she responds primly. “You still _are_ one.”

He rolls a shoulder. _Whatever_. One can only be, he supposes, who one already is.

So he sits with her in the shade and the deepening afternoon sunshine, and in fact he suspects that she stays with him long after the headrush has passed. Glenn and Rick pass them, heading back indoors with an armload of firewood each, and he doesn't miss the odd glances they send in his direction, and he doesn't really mind that either. He knows he and she make a commensurately odd pair like this.

He didn't corrupt her morals. He doubts he could. Doubts that she would permit it. And hey, he gave the girl what she wanted. That doesn't feel bad. Not remotely, it doesn't.

Might go for it again, sometime.


End file.
